a. Technical Field
Drawn to a liquid/vapor ion power plant.
b. Description Of The Prior Art
The present state of the art ion engines produce very low thrust (pounds) due to their general construction and manner in which electrostatic forces act upon the positive ions. Low mass flow rates, used by the state of the art ion propulsion engines, would not be practical to use as an accelerator to produce enough kinetic energy for practical use in an ionic repulsion turbine as described in this application. The low kinetic energy is due to its general construction and manner in which the electrostatic forces act upon the ions. A simple analogy of the thrust of its propulsion principle would be similar to the manner in which ions might be ejected, in a small stream through an electrical field, by a TV picture tube. This system could operate over a long span of time; however, its thrust would be very low. This invention has overcome the low thrust problem in the present state of the art in the following areas:
1. The manner in which propellant enters the ion repulsion discharge chamber.
2. The utilization of a high voltage distributor which synchronizes electrical fields within the chamber.
3. The utilization of a uniquely construction separate polarization field which separates the net positive charge of the ions from the net negative charge of the ions within the propellant.
4. A separate, single acting electrode within each cylinder of the ion repulsion discharge chamber which repels the ions outwardly, and perpendicular to its surface, at an extremely high velocity.